


Water and Skin

by Kahvi



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23658832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: Loki has always been his little brother; to protect, to warm, to keep safe. Thor remembers him, more often than not, as a wet, naked thing; a frozen child placed in his arms when he himself was but a child. But children grow.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Water and Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roadsterguy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadsterguy/gifts).



"I fell in! I fell in, and it was cold, and there was a fish, and he looked at me, and I didn't like it, and then I was sad because I made the fish sad!" 

Mother said something soothing in response to his desperate cries, but Thor was lost in the infinite sadness of the very young and accidentally wet. Her skirts were long and warm and thick, and Thor gathered them in his chubby fingers, rubbing his face against the coarse winter wool. It was his own fault. The thaw was fresh, and the water still sang with breaking ice far beyond the shoreline, and the rocks slippery with rain and sleet and lingering morning frost. He knew better. 

Loki did not. Loki had bright blue-green eyes that stared at Thor when he said anything at all, falling in Thor’s footsteps like a shadow. He screamed whenever Mother tried to cut his hair, so now dark curls fell over and around his face, making him stumble and shake his head when he could not see for the mass of them. Loki followed him everywhere. 

They had been playing. Thor had been playing, and Loki followed, because Loki followed him everywhere, but it had been dark still, dim afternoon following the lingering night of morning. Heimdall had said the thaw would be done by this week, and Thor knew, if you were careful and lucky, you could see the great sheets pulling back, giving in to the deep. All along the bank the water ran clear, the ice was so far out you had to climb up on the highest rocks to see. And the rocks were slippery, and Thor had fallen. He halted, dragged on along a moment by the skirt in his grip, his bare feet skidding on soft carpet. “Mother, where is Loki?” 

* * *

They carried him towards Thor, a bleak little bundle of blue-white and black, his skin so pale it took on the color of his eyes, his eyes red with exhaustion. Naked and wet and shivering. “Brother!” Thor ran after them, his legs too short to get far enough for any use. 

“By all the realms; someone get a blanket,” he heard Mother growl, and then Loki was covered up and taken away and gone. 

And Thor was very, very sorry. 

* * *

  
  


“It’s getting late.” This was Mother’s code for  _ we’ve been at table long enough _ , with the added implication of  _ your brother won’t be joining us... again _ . Thor looked up from his plate, still glistening with the juices and spotted with the debris of the evening meal. 

“May I be excused, then?”

“You may.”

He ran down the hall, into the hidden passage, all the way through the servants wing and up the back stairs to the upper courtyard and across, out through the gates to the landing pads and past the hangars to the rows and rows of utility sheds. Thor had not noticed the rain, but as he slowed and looked around, it felt like little stinging nettles on his skin, cold and sharp. 

“Go away!” 

The figure was a green and black stick against the dull grey walls and tarmac, soaking wet and shivering. As he spoke, hair got into his mouth, and he spat and swore as he kept moving, swinging his arms and stepping in different patterns. His feet slipped on the rain-soaked ground, but he kept going, not losing balance or poise. As Thor got closer, the green in his eyes glared like lasers through the messy curtain of his hair. “I brought muffins!” Thor held one out, quickly pulling his arm back, as the rain nearly knocked it out of his hand. 

“I said, go away!” Loki made a swing at where the muffin had been, his legs finally giving way under him, sliding on a particularly slippery patch. He went down like a cat, yowling in frustration, contorting his body even as he fell. Even flat on the ground, he thrashed about, kicking and bending until he was back up again, panting. 

Thor held out a hand again, no muffin. 

“No! I’m fine, I can do it; I’m doing it on my own!” 

“Yes, you’re good. Better than me.”

“Don’t lie to me, you’ve insulted me enough!” Loki swerved again. Again. His arms parried invisible attacks, stabbed with invisible knives. “I can do better.”

“You’ve been practicing all day. We missed you at dinner.” 

“Then perhaps I won’t grow fat and lazy like you.” He was shaking a little now, his skin more blue than white. 

“Loki…” Thor raised his hand a final time, and pulled it back in pain. “What…!” A red, raw gash across his underarm, right where a wrist guard should be. Blood mixed with the rain and washed away. 

“Fat,” Loki sneered, “lazy! I know how to fight; I can defend myself! I don’t need your-”

Thor embraced him. His cape was wool, and fit around them both, the hood covering both their heads, if they stood very still, so they did. Even Loki, with short, ragged breaths. “I saw father scolding you. You know he’s terrible with daggers? Or anything that’s smaller than a great-sword?” 

“You’re not.” Something metal clattered. Loki did not have his own knives; these must have been stolen from the armory. Then again, it would all be theirs in a few centuries anyway, when they ruled. 

“I’m strong, but I don’t have your resilience or your speed.” Water ran down the side of the cloak, down into Thor’s shirt and undershirt. “Come inside? I’m not as good with the cold as you, brother.”

It stung; the chill and the pain and the feel of soggy muffins being squashed by Loki’s reed-thin body against his chest. But then.. His brother laughed. 

* * *

Wet clothes were so much heavier than dry, and there would, perhaps, be raised eyebrows from the quiet, blonde man who came to take their laundry out, but Thor threw the lot in the basket anyway. Naked and freezing, he grabbed a topsheet from the bed and sat down by the fire. Loki had come with him to his rooms, though they no longer shared them; this being the privilege of those old enough to shave. Not that Loki ever seemed to. 

When his feet felt, once again, like they were part of his body, Thor hoisted himself up, stretched his back and listened for the sound of running water. It still ran. Well, his brother had been out there for hours; he deserved a nice, long shower. And hot towels, from the warmer. Thor hurried over to pick up a few, the wide ones, not too soft, as he remembered Loki liking them, and softly opened the door to the bath. Loki’s back was too him. Long, milky-white, stretching all the way to his slender neck, bent forward. He was humming something under his breath. Thor used to sing. He’d stopped because… He couldn’t remember. 

  
In two steps or three, Thor lay the towels by the side of the steam bath, so anyone stepping out of the shower would see them first thing. And, perhaps, smiling gently, wrap the shades of coarse green around himself and be, for the moment, contented. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The layout of this ship made no sense; even less so when stumbling backwards from what Thor hadn’t realized was the bathroom, thus knocking the back of his legs against a decorative stand, two towel baskets and some sort of potted plant. In a  _ bathroom _ ? How did people bathe, on Sakaar? “Uh, sorry,” he said, arms waving, finding equilibrium. 

“Sorry for what?” Loki half-turned, more annoyed than offended, by the looks of him. Though best, perhaps, not to  _ dwell  _ on the looks of him, wet and naked as he was. “What are you doing in here; find your own bath. There must be dozens of them.” 

“Didn’t know this was one.” There was a white stream of bubbles down the curve of Loki’s spine, where the milky-white skin stretched all the way to his slender neck. Dripping from his hair.

“You were so delighted to see me here in the flesh; don’t act so surprised when I need to tend to it. You can’t mask the smell with illusion, believe me.”

Of course, they used to bathe together, in the grand baths of Valhalla; in their own room, when they shared one, and Thor knew Loki’s body as well as his own, though not the feel of it. Not the touch of damp skin on damp skin with slender fingers. “Uh,” he offered, eloquently. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yes.” And Loki paused. Water slowed to a trickle as he turned fully, chest out, legs wide, hips at an angle that dared Thor to comment. “So you’ve said. Well, here I am. Will you stand there like a gaping fish, or will you leave me be, now I’ve given you a little show?” He had eaten on Sakaar, at least; there were no jutting bones, more curves than angles. No hair between his legs - Thor’s eyes darted away and back, the blood in his cheeks betraying him. 

“Sorry.” Surely he could move. He was king now, at the very least his own to command. 

“Do not mock me,” Loki snarled, shutting off the water and stalking angrily out into Thor’s arms. 

No questions anymore. Thor fit around him like he’d never left. He smelled the same. Like the sea after the rain. “I’ll get you a towel.”


End file.
